|
Upcoming Community Mapping Workshops and Institutes
Community Mapping Program:
Making Community Connections
(Grades 6-12)
The Community Mapping Program supports students, educators, and
community groups in a process of local inquiry. Community Mapping projects facilitate
place-based inquiry in which students actively observe the world around them
and are able to ask and answer questions about the environment. Middle and high
school students work with community partners, conduct fieldwork, and use tools
including Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Global Positioning Systems
(GPS) to explore their communities and address specific local needs. Community
organizations include watershed groups, historical societies, farmers' markets,
town commissions, and other civic associations.
The key elements of the program are:
- School and Community Partnerships
- Place-based Learning
- Learning for Sustainability
- Spatial Tools (map data, GIS, GPS)
Linking student learning needs, community resources, shared experiences,
and spatial decision-making tools, community mapping projects contribute to
the goals of sustainable economic and social well-being and ecological integrity.
Project outcomes may include maps, interpretive guides, databases, displays,
and web pages. To see some remarkable examples of community mapping projects
in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Colorado, please visit The
Gallery of Community Mapping Projects at the Institute
for Technology Development website.
To support accepted projects, the program provides a summer institute, GIS
software for qualified projects, formatted GIS data, access to GPS units, planning
support, and school year classroom, field, and technical support. The program
also provides in-service workshops and presentations on community mapping.
Projects have addressed Vermont
Framework of Standards & Learning Opportunities: 2.1, 2.2, 3.9, 4.6,
6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.16, 7.5, 7.1, 7.2, 7.10, 7.11, 7.13, 7.15, 7.16, 7.18
Contact The VINS Education Department for information on fees and optional graduate credits.
802.457.2779, education@vinsweb.org
Resources and
Newsletters
Tutorials
Services
Program Overview
and Model (2,401 KB)
The Community Mapping Program was featured in the Spring 2003 issue of Vermont
Nature. To read a pdf version of the issue (2,093KB) click
here.
About the Community Mapping Program
The Community Mapping Program began in 1999 as a joint program of The Orton
Family Foundation and the Vermont Institute of Natural Science and is now a
partnership between The Institute for Technology
Development and the Vermont Institute of Natural Science.
Essential support for the Community Mapping Program has also been provided
by the Wellborn Ecology Fund
of the Upper Valley Region of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, The Ward
M. and Mariam C. Canaday Educational and Charitable Trust, and The Environmental
Systems Research Institute.
The Community Mapping Program participates in the Place
Based Education Evaluation Collaborative. PEEC is a partnership between
five organizations and projects in Northern New England. By combining efforts,
the collaborative is able to support program evaluation for each of the individual
programs and also to begin trying to identify successful program characteristics
that span all these place-based education programs.
Our greatest thanks are due to the hundreds of students, educators and community
members who have used community mapping to make a difference where they live.
Return to Education page
| 
 |
